S. Korean Leader Snubs Lawmakers, Picks a Team

TOKYO — Bucking a hostile parliament, new South Korean President Kim Dae Jung today appointed a 17-member Cabinet and indicated that he will name his coalition partner, the beleaguered Kim Jong Pil, acting prime minister.

The move came after the National Assembly adjourned Monday amid shouting and shoving as opposition leaders tried to block approval of Kim Jong Pil’s appointment.

Since South Korean law does not provide for an acting prime minister, Kim Dae Jung’s aides concede that the constitutionality of the action, as well as the legal authority of the new government, will be questioned by an opposition apparently determined to clip the wings of the popular new president.

But having a functioning government during South Korea’s current economic crisis “is not a matter of choice. It’s a matter of life and death for the nation,” said the president’s spokesman, Park Jie Won, explaining Kim’s decision to forge ahead with naming his new team despite the increasingly bitter dispute with the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

The president named three members of Kim Jong Pil’s United Liberal Democrats to Cabinet posts and five members of his own National Congress for New Politics. The biggest winners in the appointment sweepstakes were the eight academics also given Cabinet posts, including the new minister of finance and economy, Lee Kyu Sung, a 59-year-old economics professor who served as finance minister in 1989.

Kim also reappointed a member of former President Kim Young Sam’s government. He is Labor Minister Yi Ki Ho, a former professor at Seoul National University.

Technically, only the prime minister can name a Cabinet. President Kim sidestepped this problem by retaining incumbent Prime Minister Koh Kun until the status of Prime Minister-designate Kim can be resolved.

The dispute over the Kim Jong Pil nomination erupted Wednesday, inauguration day, even before Kim Dae Jung was sworn in. The opposition Grand National Party, or GNP, which controls a majority in parliament, boycotted the National Assembly in a bid to force the president to withdraw the nomination.

The GNP argues that Kim Jong Pil, an architect of a 1961 coup and founder of the former and once-dreaded Korean Central Intelligence Agency, is too “tainted” for the post--though Kim Dae Jung announced during the campaign that he intended to make him prime minister.

After a meeting Friday with the president, opposition leaders agreed to vote on his choice Monday. But the attempt deteriorated into a near brawl on the National Assembly floor after members of Kim’s party discovered that opposition candidates were casting blank ballots to spoil the tally.

The dispute escalated with lawmakers from both the president’s and Kim Jong Pil’s parties blocking opposition colleagues from reaching ballot boxes.

Amid shoving and screaming, the session was adjourned for further negotiations; no resolution had been reached as of midday today, and it is unclear how long the deadlock will continue.

According to local media polls, a large majority of the public is siding with the president, and one group of citizens listening to the National Assembly proceedings by radio reacted angrily.

“They are responsible for this terrible economic crisis. How brazen-faced they are to try to undermine the new administration,” said Park Young Shik, a businessman. “They oppose because JP [Kim Jong Pil] is an old-timer? That’s a laugh. Are they new faces, then?”

Park suggested that the opposition fears that a smooth-functioning Kim Dae Jung government might make good on its promise to require sweeping restructuring of the nation’s powerful chaebol, or conglomerates, as part of the reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund as a condition of its $60-billion bailout of South Korea last November.

But opposition lawmakers noted that the president resorted to identical obstructionist tactics when he was in the opposition. And they signaled that the battle may continue at least long enough to damage the president’s reputation in South Korea, if not internationally.

“If President Kim Dae Jung appoints Kim Jong Pil as acting prime minister, that would be unconstitutional,” warned GNP lawmaker Kim Chan Jin.

But spokesman Yu Jay Gon of the president’s party observed: “Some say it’s no problem, and others say it’s illegal. If that kind of argument drags on, it will be burdensome for both sides.”

Chi Jung Nam of The Times’ Seoul Bureau contributed to this report.